


Flightless Bird

by thewolfmoon



Category: The Goldfinch - Donna Tartt
Genre: Angst, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Suicide Attempt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-12
Updated: 2018-03-12
Packaged: 2019-03-30 02:43:34
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,642
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13940895
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thewolfmoon/pseuds/thewolfmoon
Summary: It’s become a routine: Theo trying to step right out of his skin, disappear. Boris hates it.





	Flightless Bird

**Author's Note:**

> Title comes from the Iron & Wine song 'Flightless Bird, American Mouth'
> 
> Find me on tumblr @borispav

This is the third time this month. 

Boris watches from his spot on the pool deck as Theo struggles to keep himself upright on the roof. He’s cradling a half empty bottle of vodka and is only wearing one shoe, the laces untied. 

Boris shouts at him to get down, only half expecting that he’ll hear. “ _Tupitsa!_ You’ll hurt yourself up there!”

Theo lets out a noise that sounds somewhere between a laugh and a choke. “That’s the point, dipshit!”

Boris frowns. It’s impossible trying to reason with Theo, especially when he’s like this. He wonders briefly if it’s his fault, if he should’ve known better than to let Theo drink so much in such a short span of time. After all, the other two nights had unfurled in a way almost identical to this one. Had started with Theo, quiet and pokerfaced, nosing around the kitchen in search of a beer, and had ended with him curled up and crying, face flushed red, in the middle of the road.

Or unconscious at the bottom of a pool.

Theo flings the bottle of Grey Goose at the deck and it explodes on impact, tiny shards scattering across the tile and sparkling beneath the patio lights. 

“Potter, please,” Boris says, kicking off his boots, “stop this. You’ll regret in the morning.”

“Fuck you.” Theo says. He lunges forward, his body eclipsing Boris’ view of the moon a short second before plummeting down, head first, into the water. 

Boris flinches away from the splash instinctively, the thick scent of chlorine already beginning to flood his nostrils. “Fucking  _hell_.”

Small waves rush over the lip of the pool, chilling the tips of his toes. He blinks at the water’s rippled surface and allows himself a moment’s hesitation, vaguely wondering if this time will be different. Maybe Theo will be able to pull himself out. Maybe he’ll stagger back to his feet, wide-eyed and sobered, and tell Boris that he’s right, that this was stupid and he’ll never do it again.

Maybe, maybe, maybe.

When 10 seconds pass without movement Boris strips off his shirt and jumps in. Theo, he knows, should be near the center. It’s where he’d ended up last time, anyway. 

He cuts through the water expertly, pumping his legs and propelling himself until his hands meet the unmistakable arch of Theo’s shoulder. He wraps his arms around Theo’s waist and pushes them upward until they break surface, an array of blurred stars greeting them as they gasp and gape for air. 

Theo immediately wrenches himself out of Boris’ grasp and gropes for the pool steps, pulling himself up and out and hacking wetly onto the deck. Boris follows suit.

“Fuck,” Theo says, white as a sheet, voice raw and whispery. 

“Idiot,” Boris says, punching him in the shoulder, “the fuck is the matter with you?” 

The hit hadn’t had much force behind it, but Theo falls onto his back anyway, blinking up at the sky wordlessly in some sort of stunned stupor. 

Popchyk barks desperately from somewhere inside the house. 

Boris shakes his head, droplets of water flying everywhere. “You were lucky, a second time,” he says, because nothing else seems to fit. Reminding Theo that he could’ve easily snapped his neck or drowned has become pointless when Boris knows he doesn’t care. If he cared he wouldn’t have climbed onto that roof, or stretched himself out on that road, or threatened to light the entire house on fire and let it burn to ash around them.

Theo groans, pushing himself back up into a sitting position. “I can’t see,” he says, rubbing at his eyes, “my head’s killing me.”

“Your specs are in the house,” Boris says, moving to sit by him. He’d slipped them off Theo’s face at some early point in the night, in fear of them being crushed or lost during their drunken haze. 

“Your head,” he says, “did you hit it?” He reaches out a hand to examine it for himself but Theo leans away from the touch sharply, his mouth twisting into a scowl. 

“You should’ve left me there,” he rasps out, “what the fuck do you even care what I choose to do? It’s my life, all right? Kindly stay the hell out of it.” 

Boris balls up his fists, “ _The fuck do I care?_  You think I don’t care about you?”

“I don’t think, I  _know._ ” Theo says, trying and failing to pull himself up onto his feet. His voice is high and strained, crumbling. “You don’t give a shit, no one does.” He wipes at his running nose, “doesn’t matter to me though, just don’t fucking interfere.”

“How dare you say that about me?” Boris says, shoving Theo in the chest, “What gives you the rights? You have no idea how much I care. You—you have no idea how much I—” He stops, oddly ashamed at how worked up he’s getting. He can feel his heart beating madly against his ribs. 

“I’m sorry,” Theo chokes out. Boris sighs when he spots the tears slipping down his cheeks, all the anger washing out of him at once. 

“Look,” Boris starts, “is fine. I understand.”

Theo opens his mouth as if to say something else, but pukes instead, his stomach violently emptying itself of the one-too-many drinks he’d downed.

Boris winces, moving to kneel behind him. He places a hand at the center of Theo’s back and uses the other to push the hair away from his face. “You’re okay,” he says when Theo groans, shoulders trembling beneath his fingertips, “is okay, just let it out.”

He drags Theo away from the mess once he’s done, leaning him against one of the patio’s sliding doors. Theo remains silent, limp and ashen from the exertion. 

Boris grabs the shirt he’d stripped off earlier and takes Theo’s face in his hands, balling up one of sleeves to wipe his mouth. “Better?” He says, trying to meet Theo’s gaze. 

Theo looks up at him, his eyes empty and glazed, far off. Boris recognizes that look. Knows that it means he won’t be getting anything out of him for a while. 

He drops his shirt and sits back on his heels, resisting the urge to just curl up on the ground and fall asleep. He’s tired and his head is pounding, a pulsing ache that he knows isn’t going to dissipate for days. He rubs his temples and wonders if he should be doing something to prevent this from happening again. He briefly considers hiding the liquor— slipping it far from Theo’s reach whenever he falls into a mood like this— but quickly decides against it. It probably wouldn’t do much anyway. He’d attempted the same with his father once, and had come to school the next day sporting more bruises than he could count on one hand. 

Theo pokes Boris’ knee, interrupting his stream of thought. 

“What is it?” Boris asks, eyeing him warily, “sick again?”

Theo shakes his head; a slow, sluggish, movement. He holds out his left hand, uncurling his fingers to reveal a jagged-edged shard of the Grey Goose bottle. His palm is slick with blood.

Boris grabs Theo’s hand gently, pulling out the shard and grimacing at the sight of the hook-shaped cut now dipping beneath his thumb. “Fuck,” he says, sobered, “I think we should go back inside.”

 

 

* * *

  

Boris is beyond thankful Larry and Xandra aren’t home. He knows Theo would never have done any of this if they had been, but still, he considers it a small miracle; their continued absence a streak of luck working in Boris and Theo’s favor. After all, the last thing he’d want is the two of them hounding Theo while he’s like this.

He tends to Theo’s palm in the upstairs bathroom, seating him on the lid of the toilet and wrapping his hand with the gauze they’d stolen from the minimart a month ago. It was Theo who’d insisted they’d grab first-aid supplies, vehemently claiming that he didn’t ever want a repeat of the perfume incident. Boris hadn’t understood the necessity for it at the time, but he does now. He likes having something to do, having something tangible that he can fix. 

“See,” he says, once he’s done, “this is why we don’t go jumping on roofs, throwing bottles. Very dangerous.” 

He offers Theo a smile, but it’s too heavy on his face and doesn’t last for long.

Theo isn’t looking anyway, his eyes are trained on the wall behind Boris’ head. It’s clear that he’s retreated inside himself, gone someplace far where no one can reach.  

Boris chews the inside of his cheek and runs a tentative finger over the knob of Theo’s wrist. 

_Talk to me_

Theo doesn’t respond. He’s started shaking again, his lips tinged blue at the corners. 

“All right,” Boris says, letting his hand drop, “c’mon, potter, before you freeze half to death.” 

They’re both still dressed in wet clothes that stick and sag heavily on their bodies. It doesn’t help that the AC was left on all day, the air now frigid enough that Boris swears he can feel it down through his bones. 

He shrugs himself out of his own jeans before prompting Theo to lift his arms so that he can peel off his shirt for him. They’ve undressed each other enough times to know how to do this without words.

Boris tries and fails to keep his eyes averted as Theo fumbles with his pants, bandaged hand clumsy with the zipper. They fall to the floor in a damp heap and Boris catches sight of the spray of freckles dotting the insides of Theo’s thighs, the gold-hued tan that fades off right above his hips.   

Something almost painful flutters through him.

Theo wraps his arms around himself and sways uneasily on his feet, his back bumping roughly against the sink’s edge. He’s going to pass out soon, Boris knows. It’s a wonder he’s made it this long to begin with.

“Into bed, go,” Boris ushers him out of the bathroom, clearing his throat. 

He kicks through stacks of dog-eared paperbacks and mountainous piles of dirty clothes in an attempt to find something clean. Popchyk, having spent the entire time pacing hysterically in front of the bathroom door, now leaps onto the bed with Theo, whining miserably when no attempt is made to pet him.

“Ssh  _poustyshka,_ ” Boris says, while rifling through Theo’s dresser, _“_ Potter needs rest, yes?” He finds a dark shirt that smells fairly clean at the back of the drawer he’s digging through and tosses it in Theo’s direction (only later does he realize that it’s his own  _Never Summer_ shirt, the one he thought he’d misplaced a long while back). 

When Theo makes no move to put it on Boris does it for him, slipping the threadbare material over his head and through his arms before finally covering him with the duvet. Theo lets him do it all, body as limp and boneless as a doll’s.

“Good night,” Boris says, switching off the lamp. 

He turns to leave, making a long mental list of the things that need to be done before he can sleep. There’s the laundry and the pool deck and the mess of bottles and cans they’d left in the living room. He sighs and rubs at his eyes. His chest is aching for a smoke. 

“Don’t leave.”

It’s so quiet that Boris almost misses it, more of a timid whisper than anything else. He stops halfway out the door and turns back. Theo’s sitting up in bed, his face indistinguishable in the darkness. 

“Don’t leave,” he says again, and something in his voice tugs at Boris, guides him back to his side of the bed.

He climbs in next to Theo, keeping a thin line of space between their bodies. Theo lies back down and turns away.

“What is it?” Boris says.

Theo doesn’t respond.   

Boris listens to the low whistle of wind whipping past the window panes and counts back from 10 before putting a hand on Theo’s waist, squeezing it.

“I won’t go,” he says this time. He can feel Theo relax beneath his touch, his breathing growing slow and deep.

It’s silent for a while, and Boris thinks he’s fallen asleep when Theo finally says, “I killed her.”

Boris stiffens, his fingers digging into Theo’s hip. “No,” he says, “am not going to listen to this. On and on you go always with this guilt nonsense. Is bullshit.”

“But I did” Theo says, and Boris can tell he’s started crying again. “God, it’s all my fucking fault. We wouldn’t have gone if it wasn’t for me. I should’ve been in school, she should’ve been at work. We wouldn’t have been there, okay? We weren’t supposed to have been there.”

Theo sobs and Boris pulls him back against his chest, holds him tight. He’s never seen him so upset. Quiet, moody, angry, yes, but nothing like this. It scares him.

Theo tries to break out of Boris’ hold, but it’s a weak, half-hearted attempt. “Ssh,” Boris says, hoping his voice sounds sturdier than he feels, “this is not your fault, Potter. Bad things happen. We do not always have control.”

“No,” Theo says, going lax in Boris’ arms, “no. You don’t get it I hate–” He shudders, “I just, don’t want to be here anymore.”

“We can run away,” Boris says, knowing full well that isn’t what he means.

Theo turns his face into the pillow. “I wish I was never born.”

“Stop,” Boris says, the word so small it barely leaves his lips. He pulls Theo closer. So close he can feel each and every rise and fall of his chest, can smell the chlorine and cigarettes on him, the light layer of sweat. “You being here, alive, is a good thing. Best thing. I need you.”

Boris has never hated the language barrier between them more. It never bothered him much, but now it feels almost physical, like a wall being built up around him, locking Theo out. He doesn’t know how to string together the words pulsing through his head, doesn’t know how to let Theo see inside, how to make him understand.

He runs a hand up and down Theo’s back, rubs small circles into its center.  _Everything will get better_ , he tells him, but the phrase feels stale and heavy on his tongue. It’s a lie and he’s sure they both know it. The future makes no promises. The next time Theo steps off a roof he could miss the water altogether, split his skull right open on the patio.

If this is what he really wants, Boris knows that he won’t stop trying. This isn’t something that goes away on its own, if the will is there it’ll follow him, work it’s way into everything he thinks, everything he does.

Boris knows this and hates that he knows it so well.

Theo sniffles. “Okay,” he says, sleepy and resigned, “Okay.”

Boris presses a light kiss into his hair and thinks about how he won’t remember any of this in the morning. Theo shifts in his arms, turns so that they’re facing each other. His eyes are closed, his nose bright red even beneath the silver-toned glow of the moon.

“Just don’ leave” he slurs, words half-muffled by the pillow.

“I won’t,” Boris says. He guides Theo’s good hand up to his chest, presses it right over his heart. “Sleep now, I’m here.”

They hold each other into the night, legs interlocked, foreheads pushed together. For the first time in a long time Boris dreams of something bright. Gold hair and gold paint, sunlight burning hazel in a familiar set of eyes. Gold gold gold.

When he wakes his mouth is packed tight with all the things he couldn’t say.


End file.
